


Wolves of Yellowstone

by theladyhathaway



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bottom Hanzo, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Okami Hanzo Shimada, Power Bottom Hanzo Shimada, Shenanigans, Tags to be added, Top Jesse McCree, brief but bloody, dad gabe is the best gabe, hanzo knows what he wants, park ranger jesse mccree, tw animal death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyhathaway/pseuds/theladyhathaway
Summary: Boy meets wolfgod, and everything from silliness to sexiness ensues. Gratuitious awoo-ing ahead.Inspired by the musings of @hhgggxx on tumblr (interrobang on Ao3), the fanfiction “Ghost Stories on Route 66” by @solivar (Nagaina on Ao3), and various late-night conversations with @melissaknowsthings





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> exposition exposition exposition... here we go, friends. updates are going to be sporadic at best, be warned.

From his perch in a repurposed hunting hide in a pine tree, ten-ish miles in from the Montana border of Yellowstone National Park, the ranger let out a satisfied huff, his breathing misting in the chilly air. He lowered his binoculars and took down a few last careful notes for the Fish and Wildlife people currently camped out in his office, hoping that these latest observations would help convince them the pack of wolves he was clinging to a tree squinting at were actually going to stay in the area for the next few months. They were afar enough into the interior of the Montana wilderness that the officials in his office insisted a ranger already familiar with the area go and collect some data for them, rather than doing the work of making sure the tracking collars placed on several of the wolves were still in place and functional themselves. If the wolves stayed in the general area for the next several months, they’d likely avoid both prey shortages and poachers, and then move on to someone else’s jurisdiction, taking the Department people with them, in a few months. The ranger couldn’t really bring himself to blame them. Being out in the Montana woods a few hours off dusk in wolf country when the nights were really beginning to make one grateful for having feeling in the toes and fingers wasn’t all to appealing to him either, and he loved his job.

Considering further the approaching dusk, Jesse McCree collected his various pieces of equipment and began descending from his perch back down the rustic ladder, shivering a little even through his multiple layers. Dusk in the woods of Montana was not a time to be outside, much less now as the long dry days of summer were coming to an abrupt end in early September. When his boots hit the much-more-comfortably stable ground, it was indeed the beginning of the end of the day. Heading out at a brisk walk for the clearing where his fellow ranger waited with the truck, the ranger activated his transceiver. “’Reeha, you there? I’m comin’ back, pack’s fine. Got that last data for the Fish and Wildlife people, all the collars are still in place. Maybe they’ll finally be happy now.”

A few seconds later, the coworker Jesse considered more of a sister answered with a radio-scratchy, “Gotcha. Want me to come pick you up?”

“Nah, weather’s still good. Need to stretch my legs a little, was up there for hours.”

“Roger, see you in a few. Over.”

As he walked, Jesse fought against the strangest sense of unease. He’d walked these woods a thousand times and never felt the slightest bit of undue danger, but tonight was different. He shivered and rubbed the back of his neck as he walked. A new moon meant it was gonna be dark as the pits of Gabriel Reyes’ soul that night, with likely some rain coming judging by the wind. Creepy. Jesse was by no means a superstitious man, but having lived in the woods for as long as he had meant he gained an understanding and healthy respect for all the somethings in the woods that weren’t always what they seemed. He rubbed the back of his neck again, feeling the short hairs there rising with the strangely electric air. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind that this was wolf country, after all, maybe he should walk a little faster. Even though Jesse had last sighted the wolves a good while away, he knew how fast they could move when they wanted to. Jesse shivered. By the time he could see the truck’s headlights breaking through the trees he was practically jogging, the hair on the back of his neck standing almost on end.

He paced quickly to the passenger door and hoped Reeha didn’t notice when he slammed the locks down after he climbed in.

She did not, far too preoccupied to notice. “Jesus, Jesse, did you turn your radio off? I must have called you half a dozen times.”

Jesse blinked. “No, no I didn’t- The batteries musta died, Reeha, I’m sorry. What happened?”

Fareeha shook her head, her hair beads clicking. “Jess, you aren’t gonna believe this. They tagged a wolf today, those Fish and Wildlife people that’ve have been around recently. They were out with Gabe and Jack and there it was, not twenty yards away. Gabe said it was looking back and forth like it was trying to decide which way to go on the trail. He said it’s not just any wolf, it’s the _literal_ _biggest_ wolf they’d ever seen. I was just talking to Gabe about it not ten minutes ago, and he was _completely_ serious when he was telling me about it. White as snow, too, and had these neat yellow markings under its eyes.”

Jesse raised his eyebrows and fought back another shiver, but said nothing, reminding himself objectively that it was more than likely a regular wolf and Gabriel “Has Never Been Completely Serious Ever In His Entire Life” Reyes was likely pulling her leg. “So,” he said as he leaned down to arrange his gear on the floorboard between his feet, “I guess the Fish and Wildlife people were having a fuckin’ field day, huh?” Fareeha made an assenting noise as she started the truck and started heading back to the station.

“Gabe says so. He and Jack think it might be some kind of arctic wolf hybrid that wandered too far south and east and ended up here somehow, or it’s a pet that escaped or that someone dumped. Climate change and food supplies and or exotic pet needs, you know the drill. Speaking of food supplies, you have to fend for yourself for a few days. I talked to Jack, he says it’s fine if I spend a few days at my mom’s for Rein’s birthday. I’m assuming you’re going to want me to bring you more of that nasty grape soda that you love so much when I come back?”

Shaking off his unease, Jesse turned to shoot a wolfish grin and a wink at her. “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Fareeha wrinkled her nose and flicked a look at Jesse’s paunch as she maneuvered the truck down the track. “I believe I know one that does. Fewer sodas, more hikes, and a shave might do you good, Sasquatch. Ma still frets about you and your green leafy material intake.” Jesse snorted and tugged his jacket closed over his shirt, grumbling half-heartedly about busybody women and their mothers while Reeha laughed at him. _Frets_ was a kind way of saying Ana Amari threatened on a monthly basis to come to the park and force-feed Jesse vegetables herself if she wasn’t thoroughly assured Jesse was getting some form of proper nutrition.

After Fareeha dropped him off back at the station, Jesse headed in to close up shop and and then made the short walk up the mostly-disguised-from-tourists path to his little house deeper in the woods to turn in for the night himself. He hummed a song from an old Western as he went through the motions for bed.

-

The storm hit within the hour. Normally storms acted as white noise for Jesse, had him snoring on his pillow in minutes, but this one was different. He tossed and turned for the better part of an hour before ending up staring up at his ceiling as the rain pounded against his window and the wind howled and roared through the trees. He scratched absent-mindedly at his belly, and his hand drifted slowly farther south, rubbing and running his nails lightly over the skin of his lower belly and thighs. He sleepily considered it for a few moments, but the strange feeling like he was being watched prevented his blood from heating. He didn’t notice when he finally dropped into a light sleep. Even then, Jesse didn’t find rest. His sleep was fractious and his dreams filled with flashes of dark trees and yellow-gold-white fur. He was running through the woods, sprinting, out of breath, the trees closing in on him, hot panting breath on his neck, no time no space no _air no air no air_ —

Jesse woke with a ragged gasp, sucking oxygen, and bolted upright in bed. Or he would have bolted, had there not been what felt like a boulder sitting on his midsection, leading to an undignified brief fit of scrabbling, causing him to be on the edge of asphyxiation and generally unable to move. Jesse had only a moment to struggle before a long crack of lightning lit the room for a single clarifying second and revealed the identity of the boulder. Jesse froze.

Illuminated in the white brilliance of the lightning was the figure of a man, heavy with muscle and wearing a white wolf skin headdress and strange armor, kneeling on Jesse’s stomach, a feral smile rendering his face extremely dangerous. Now cast back into darkness, Jesse didn’t move. The strange electric quality of the air grew stronger, again raising the hair on Jesse’s neck and telling him that he was in the presence of something not entirely of this earth and it was likely best not to move. The figure shifted closer to Jesse, who found himself incapable of moving from holding his weight up on his elbows even if he’d wanted to or felt safe doing so, and let out a low growl, a deeply inhuman sound, the vibrations of which Jesse could feel in his chest.

Another strike of lightning revealed the man’s face under the headdress. Unearthly beauty, was the first impression Jesse’s brain processed. Each plane and angle of his face was flawless, from his heavy white brows to his dark eyes to his sculpted lips. Another growl emanated from the man, raising gooseflesh all over Jesse’s body, and he shifted even closer. Despite the terror of the moment, it had been long enough since Jesse’s last lay that a small and embarrassingly unconcerned part of him in the back of his mind could appreciate the intruder’s incredible beauty.

His eyes now adjusted to the dim light of the room, the man was close enough for Jesse to see the vaguely amused expression on his incredible face. “Your friends, I believe, lost this. I hope for their sake, that is, that it indeed was a simple mistake,” the intruder rumbled, his low and somehow musical voice nearly lost in the thunder. He leaned even closer, and something thunked onto Jesse’s bedside table. Jesse flinched again when something warm- a fingertip? - touched the bottom of his chin and tipped his head up.

He could feel warm breath on his jaw and chin as the stranger’s weight shifted on him again, seemingly somehow aware of the slowly strengthening effect he was having on Jesse, and settled directly onto Jesse’s hips, eliciting a gasp from him. As Jesse became more and more convinced the intruder was some kind of overly-zealous nature lover and not a cosplaying would-be murderer, the small and weak part of him that appreciated a pretty face grew louder, even as Jesse did his best to ignore it.  The fingertip, if that’s what it was, became two fingertips and a thumb on either side of his jaw, turning Jesse’s face from one side to another for the stranger’s perusal. The electric quality of the air had not faded, and Jesse was still held in some strange kind of thrall to it, blood pounding in his veins for now a variety of reasons. The stranger breathed hot, somehow fragrant, breath onto Jesse’s face, and made a considering noise. “Perhaps I should have _you_ in a collar,” he mused, cupping Jesse’s jaw in his palm. There was another crash of thunder and a flash of lightning, Jesse blinked, and he was suddenly and completely alone. The air resumed its usual quality. Jesse blinked rapidly for two seconds, then was able to properly scrabble for the lamp on his nightstand, finding in the pool of calming yellow light a collar, as the stranger had described using on Jesse. Not just any collar, it was a tagging collar the Service and the Fish and Wildlife people were using on the wolves in the area. The same kind of collar Fareeha had told Jesse they had just used on the supposed white wolf earlier that day. In perfect condition, as if someone with thumbs had simply slipped it over a wolf’s head and off.

-

The next morning, an extremely sleep-deprived Jesse McCree was staring into his coffee cup when Fareeha called. Jesse switched his stare to his cell phone and debated not answering so he wouldn’t have to relate the possibly-hallucinated events of the night before to his fellow government employee. But, he knew if he didn’t talk to Fareeha in a timely manner she would assume he died and her mother would come track down his body to bring him back to life to berate him to death again herself for allowing himself to die, likely of the malnourishment she always suspected plagued him, and that was really just too much to deal with before nine am and at least three cups of coffee. So, he picked up the phone. After assuring her he did not die in the storm and nothing too big had come down around the station, Jesse hesitated when Fareeha asked if anything else of note had happened. She noticed it, of course.

“What, Jesse. What happened?”

“Nothin’ you needa worry about, Reeha, promise.”

“Spill it, right now, Jesse McCree, or I’ll send Ma _and_ Rein after you.”

Jesse shuddered at the thought of being interrogated by Ana _and_ her earnest mountain of a husband, then sighed. “I think I should prolly get my locks switched. There was a bit of a… situation with a, uh, intruder last night.”

Fareeha went silent for a second, then was deadly quiet when she said. “Explain. Now.”

So, Jesse related his encounter with the… being, and waited. For a few agonizing seconds Fareeha was quiet, then she spoke. “So. You’re a furry.”

Jesse collapsed against the counter. “Ree- Reeha. No.”

But it was too late.

Fareeha managed to say between peals of giggles, “Jess- Jesse, I can _promise_ you that was a dream. It was your subconscious trying to tell you something, you _nasty-_ ”

“Reeha. I am bein’ dead serious here. There was a man in a wolf skin in my house last night.”

Jesse could hear his sister forcibly stifling her giggles as she spoke. “Okay. Were there any signs of forced entry? Was anything not as you left it? You might have forgotten to lock the door behind you-”

Jesse dragged a hand down his face. “Okay, listen, we both know I never drink on the job-”

“Hah.”

“ _Rarely_ drink on the job, and drunk or sober, I’ve never once forgotten to lock something behind me that needs to be locked; door, fence gate, car. Anything.”

“That’s beside the point. Were there any signs of intrusion, Jesse?”

Jesse groaned and dug a hand into his hair. “No. There weren’t.”

“Then there’s your answer. It was a dream, and you had better clear your search history out on the work computer before I get back so I don’t have to deal with-”

“Fareeha Amari.”

Fareeha laughed fully again. “I’ll see you in a couple days. Tell me if you keep having weird dreams, this is really entertaining. I won’t mention it to Ma though, she’ll want to get you ritually cleansed. I mean, if you wanted to do that anyway, I could always give her a lift up here and she could-”

“Goodbye, Fareeha.”

“Okay, okay. Bye, Jesse.”

Jesse set his phone down with a sigh, then tossed back the last of his coffee and rose. Lovely maybe-dreamed strangers in headdresses aside, he still had a ranger station to run.

She was right, of course. It was probably just a dream. Jesse could have almost convinced himself of it, if he didn’t have a memory of putting the collar in the drawer of his nightstand. He resolved he would check the drawer later that night. If the collar wasn’t there, the entire encounter was some kind of hallucination or dream, and if it was, he’d get his locks changed. Jesse also firmly resolved to not think about how the stranger had disappeared into thin air, or how the air had that strange electric quality that sapped all ability or will to move from his limbs, or the man’s unearthly beauty that Jesse had never quite seen the likes of before-

Jesse forcibly gave his head a little shake. More coffee. That’s what he needed. _Stop thinking, Jesse. Just stop._

-

An hour and more than a healthy amount of coffee later found Ranger McCree signing in a group of hikers and giving them the usual schtick they’d likely heard a thousand times before about fires, wildlife, staying on the trails, etc. before waving them off and telling them with his best Government Official Voice to “take care now, y’hear?”

After the usual stream of morning hikers had ebbed, Jesse headed to the back office to try and slog through more of the paperwork relegated to him by Gabriel “Worst Fucking Boss Ever” Reyes when he heard the cheerful chime of the bell over the door sing out again, signaling another arrival. Jesse stood with a mild grumble about having just sat down, and headed back out to the front of the Visitors Center to smile and direct the newcomer to the stand of maps, before stopping dead in his tracks.

The newcomer was an elegantly dressed man who was staring intently up a large framed print of a gray wolf hanging above the door. His black hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, with heavy brows arched over deep-set eyes as dark as his hair, and graceful Asian features. Jesse’s heart stopped. Ignoring the difference in hair color and the absent golden facial markings, the man’s ethereal beauty was a perfect, albeit mundane, translation of Jesse’s home invader. Jesse felt his mouth fall open. The stranger turned, met Jesse’s gaze, and a small smile pulled up the corners of his perfect mouth. “Greetings.”

Jesse would absolutely deny stumbling, but he nonetheless beat a very hasty retreat back a step as he gawked at the man who was now studying Jesse’s undoubtedly strange behavior with an innocuously mild expression and _goddammit Jesse use your thinkin’ brain_. The man arched a single dark brow, and Jesse nearly choked, “ _You_ -”

Jesse coughed, cut himself off. _Federal employee, Jesse, concentrate._ “How can I help you?”

Now both the dark brows were lifted. “I am here because my brother particularly enjoys this park, and I thought I might find him here, and also because I wish to acquire a map in the meantime.”

The part of Jesse’s brain that was still clinging to scraps of his professionalism caught on the phrase about finding a brother; a missing person was still a missing person, pretty-but-possibly-home-invading strangers aside. “Your brother is missing? Have you filed a police report yet?”

The stranger let out a huff of laughter, and returned his attention to the various framed photos of wolves hanging on the walls. “It is less that my brother is missing, and more that he simply does not wish to be found. He is being inordinately stubborn about not speaking to me. I am certain he is in no danger if that is your concern.” It was Jesse’s turn to arch his brows. The stranger turned his dark eyes on Jesse again, and Jesse felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“Do you not believe me?” the man asked, tone amused, as he tipped his head to one side, sleek hair spilling over his shoulder like an oil slick. Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, caught under the immense weight of the stranger’s gaze. Such incredible eyes, like purest onyx so dark Jesse couldn’t make out his pupils, ringed with smoky lashes and set so deep into his already lovely face… Jesse could stare into those eyes for millennia and never get tired of them-

“Perhaps it is best I take my leave now,” the man said, tone still amused, and turned away, breaking whatever spell Jesse was under, and plucked a map from the stand in a single sudden and graceful movement. He came to a fluid halt before the door and lifted his elegant head to look once more at the framed gray wolf print. “It is excellent work you all are doing here, by the way,” he said lightly, then turned and let the screen door clatter shut behind him. The moment the man left Jesse’s view, it was like a weight was lifted off Jesse’s chest, like incense had cleared from his lungs. He could think clearly again. It was only in its absence Jesse noticed that same electricity had been in the air, had emanated from the man like a mantle. _What in the hell_ -

Jesse flung himself out the door. “ _Hey_!”

The stranger was gone, the clearing around the Visitors Center absent of people.

-

It was impossible. All of this was impossible. Headdress-wearing cosplayers sitting on his dick in the middle of the night and leaving wildlife-grade tracking hardware in their wake, their dark-haired doppelganger showing up in the day in a bespoke suit talking about brothers and maps—Jesse needed a drink. This was all impossible.

He dropped heavily into his chair and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying not to think. His computer monitor let out a cheerful _ding_ that signaled a new incoming email, and Jesse groaned, then opened his eyes to click open his email program. _From: Amari, Fareeha RE: the wolf i told u about!!!_ with several .jpeg attachments. Jesse knew it was likely a sign of an impending decline in his cardiovascular health that his heart came to a full and complete stop in his chest for a third time in less than twenty-four hours. The attached four photos all contained the same subject: a white wolf, nearly silver in the sun, with distinctive yellow streaks below its eyes. Jesse stared, feeling like reality was shifting around him and that he somehow owed Gabe money for this. _Not pulling Fareeha’s leg for once, it seems_. It was, of course, impossible for the stranger to be somehow connected to this wolf, but… Jesse was bored and curious and rather unnerved by the whole ordeal, so he decided to do some digging, mostly intending and hoping to prove himself wrong.

Jesse spent half an hour on the phone with one of the Fish and Wildlife people, asking about the wolf they’d tagged the day before until he was able to wheedle the serial number of the white wolf’s collar out of the stuck-up fucker on the other end, and then logged into the various NPS tracking software to see if the wolf’s tracker signal was still live. Even though he objectively knew it wasn’t uncommon for collars to malfunction -thus his work the other day manually checking on the wolves- it was nonetheless unnerving to find that collar’s number nowhere in Yellowstone. Nowhere outside Yellowstone, either.

-

Upon arriving back home, Jesse stared at his door for a long moment. He gathered his courage, muttered, “Aw, fuck it,” and threw the door open before striding to the bedroom and yanking open the drawer to his nightstand.

He couldn’t make himself process what he was seeing. After another two hours in the office of convincing himself he’d seen the dark-haired man in the park the day before his so-called intruder situation and featured his lovely face in his dreams, seeing the plain brown leather with the neatly turned-off tracking device sitting innocuously in his nightstand was the last thing he expected. Jesse dropped onto his bed, ears beginning to ring, and breathed, “Is he a fuckin’ werewolf or some shit?”

“I believe the term you’re looking for is _okami_. Not werewolf.” Jesse jumped three feet out of his skin at the voice and tore back out into his living room where his mouth fell promptly open.

There, sitting on his couch with a completely placid expression and his last can of grape soda open in his hands, was the man from last night. A man, but with the same markings and coloring as the wolf they’d tagged the day before, like a bleached and somehow… wilder version of the man from the office. A small and familiar smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. “To answer your question, I can assume whichever form suits my purposes best. I am an okami, a wolf god. You may call me Hanzo.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo is too crafty for anyone's good, and even worse, he knows what he wants.

Jesse was still unconvinced he wasn’t going insane.

The werewolf-slash-okami-slash-intruder that was actually real and _inside his house AGAIN_ stared at him from the couch with the same vaguely-amused expression from that morning as Jesse sputtered. The stranger- Hanzo’s- expression didn’t change as Jesse felt behind himself for the chair near the door he’d just burst through twice in the span of a handful of minutes, and sat heavily, staring back at Hanzo, who was now calmly sipping grape soda and watching him in return. His legs were folded neatly underneath himself, both hands, one of his forearms bearing swirling intricate marks as gold as those under his eyes, sweeping across his cheekbones, holding the can with a kind of effortless dexterity Jesse knew only came from a life of using one’s hands.

“Okay-” Jesse started, pressing his hands together in front of his face. Best to take this slowly and carefully. The okami/werewolf/crazy-person-with-a-wolfy-home-invasion-fetish was armored, and could easily be armed. No surprises, slow and calm. Be ready to de-escalate the situation if it happens. But…

Too many odd things had happened in the past day or two for Jesse to let this go too quickly. If the intruder somehow had answers…

“Okay, _okami_. How do I know you aren’t some stalker wolf-enthusiast with a wig collection?” Jesse began again, quietly. “Prove I shouldn’t call the cops right now and get you back to the cosplayer convention you prolly strayed from.”

The intruder blinked, considered Jesse. “What is a cosplayer convention?”

Jesse sputtered again. “What do you- you mean you- Look, I’m not-”

“Is it like a party? A convention is like a party, is it not?”

“No, well, I guess, I’ve never been to one, but-”

“Then how do you think I am from a cosplayer convention, if you have never been to one?”

“I know people, okay, and-”

“Oh, I see, you think I am a furry of some variety.”

Jesse choked. “How th’ _hell_ do you know what furries are, but not-”

Silver brows lifted, eyes flashing conspiratorial. “All kinds are drawn to the seclusion of the woods, it seems.”

Jesse couldn’t find anything to say to that. Couldn’t bring himself to consider how that concept could possibly affect his job and the amount of paperwork he could be facing if there really were furries gallivanting in the woods. Jesse ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

“What the hell was that last night?”

The stran-Hanzo tipped his head to one side, taking another considering sip, wise eyes still amused. “You had seemed not un-receptive to my presence beforehand, I am surprised you grow so wary of me now.” A small smile pulled at the okami’s- Hanzo‘s- lips and his eyes glittered with mischief. “My apologies for the theatrics. I have been told one of my great flaws is a penchant for dramatics. My extended apologies for disturbing you.” A short, neat bow from the waist. “Nonetheless, it is flattering you thought of the encounter as a dream.” The smile grew, might have edged on becoming a smirk. Definitely a smirk. Jesse felt his neck and cheeks reddening with embarrassment the okami-Hanzo knew what kind of effect he had on Jesse. Fantastic.

“I still don’t know that you’re really a- what did you say you are?”

“Okami. A deity; in my case, of wolves.”

Jesse met his gaze, refusing to drop that yellow stare. “I stand by what I said before. Prove it.”

The stranger tipped his head slightly to one side, the motion slow and deliberate and inhuman, eyes endlessly dark and rich, as that same strange energy deepened and tingled along Jesse’s skin and said lightly, “My apologies for disrupting your device in the woods as you walked to your vehicle yesterday evening, my presence can have an adverse effect on technology. Also, now that I have you here, what was that song you were humming last night? It is from a film, is it not?”

Jesse sucked in a breath, the hair on the back of his neck going entirely on end again, feeling once again the strangeness of the woods as he walked yesterday, the feeling of being watched or followed, and how he’d felt watched all during the storm and the encounter last night, the same electricity that had run down his spine and fogged his mind that morning in the Visitor’s Center…

“My god. You’re telling the truth, aren’t you,” Jesse breathed. He faithfully ignored how his hand shook as he ran it backward through his hair.

The oka- Hanzo blinked at him again, suddenly serious. “I am.”

The sudden sound of a car door slamming made them both jump, and Jesse bolted upright out of his chair. He crossed the floor to the window in three long strides, and saw Fareeha Amari kicking the door to her jeep closed behind her, bags of what could only have been groceries sent from her mother on her arm.

Jesse groaned. “I thought she said she was going to be gone until _Monday_ ,” he growled, aware of how few seconds he had before Fareeha came in the door and saw his that tale from the night before was not as much of a dream as she had thought it was. He chewed on his lower lip and glanced back at Hanzo, the wolf god still watching him with that same innocuous expression and sipping his grape soda. Shit, shit, _shit_.  Fareeha was going to lose all of her shit and her goddamn mind too and call the cops and the last thing Jesse needed was _cops_ -

He opened the door enough to stand in it, one hand on the knob and one on the doorframe. He prayed to whatever deity might be listening, Hanzo or otherwise, that he could talk his way out of this one. He knew with absolute certainty he couldn’t physically stop her from coming in, despite having five inches and a good forty pounds on the woman. Fareeha had far too many blackbelts in far too many types of hand-to-hand combat to not be admitted in an immediate manner to wherever it was she wished to go, her five-foot-eight frame and clunky uniform generally doing an excellent job of belying her incredible athleticism.

Jesse dared another glance at Hanzo. “I guess if I ask you to disappear again, you won’t, will you.”

Another sip of soda, a sly smile. “I wish to meet your friend.”

Jesse glared as Fareeha climbed the steps and began chattering.

“Surprise! Turns out Ma is taking Rein to that spa in Denver he really loves so I’m off the hook for festivities and she instructed me to get everything on this list for you and to make you _actually_ cook _and_ eat it so _apparently_ we’re going to actually using your kitchen so I _really_ hope it’s _clean_ for once and- what are you glaring at, Jesse McCree?” Fareeha asked with a smile as she mounted the stairs.

Jesse did his best to smile normally. “Nothin,’ the TV. Cable’s going in and out again.”

Fareeha paused on the last step, took in Jesse’s stance in the mostly-closed door with an unperturbed eye. “Jesse McCree, I have known you since you were a gross seventeen-year-old. Don’t think you’re keeping me and my gift of green organic plant matter out because you haven’t picked up your dirty boxers.” Jesse sweated a little.

“No, ‘Reeha, it’s not-” Just like that, a hand -had she grown another one, where the hell did it come from? - and a leg had insinuated themselves between Jesse and the door and he found himself suddenly and irresistibly simply moved aside.

“Look, Jesse, if there’s someone clutching the sheets in your room right now I’ll just drop these and come back later, maybe after shaking their hand, honestly, because-” Jesse reached out, grabbed her shoulder, tried to stop her, but she’d already stopped, was already staring. Jesse braced himself, cringed a glance at the couch-

And found a big white dog lying there, muzzle resting on his elegantly crossed forelegs. Probably sensing them looking, Hanzo opened his eyes and lifted his head, his tail picking up a slow benign wag. Jesse’s mouth fell open. That _son of a_ -

“Oh,” Fareeha, a notorious lover of all things canine, breathed. Hanzo pushed himself up onto all four legs and shook himself, getting white hairs all over Jesse’s couch, then hopped down off the couch and paced across the room to sit at Jesse’s feet with an expansive and obviously completely-at-ease yawn.

Fareeha, her voice still soft and breathy with the kind of all-consuming love only dogs could inspire in her, said, “So, is this guy that same… animal?” She crouched and offered a hand, which Hanzo offered a polite perfunctory sniff and small lick. His eyes went half-closed as Fareeha began to rub and scratch behind his ears, obviously drinking in the attention.

Jesse coughed. “Uh, yeah, that is- He showed up this mornin’ outside, just hangin’ out with me and was acting very, uh, docile. I think those Fish and Wildlife people, um, put the collar on wrong because he was… showing signs of… mild distress about it. So, I took it off him and brought it home and… he followed me and, uh, he saw the open door and trotted in like he owned the place.” As he finished the thought, Jesse shot a short glare at Hanzo, who entirely missed it due to closed-eye reveling in the best chin scritches Fareeha could provide.  “I talked to a friend of mine, a wildlife vet, and she said based on phenotype, it was likely he’s a… low to mid-content wolfdog. So. Um. I guess he lives here now until I can do something about him.” Jesse exhaled, pleased with himself at how plausible that sounded. He’d have to call Angela later and explain as much as he could, probably grovel for her to play along if it was ever necessary to actually call her on the subject of certain white canines.

Fareeha was obviously only half-listening, now crooning to Hanzo about the glories of his mink-thick and perfectly white coat. Jesse crossed his arms over his chest and held back a sigh. Maybe if they liked each other so much, Hanzo would start invading _her_ home instead. “What are you thinking of calling him? Something dignified, he’s _so_ handsome-” Hanzo let out a low, satisfied noise and Fareeha cooed to him again. “ _Yes_ , you are, you know how handsome you are, don’t you? _Yes_ , you do-”

Jesse was about to sigh and sourly suggest something he knew Reeha would approve of, like _Prince_ , or _Duke_ , or _King_ when he was struck by a sudden epiphany. Hanzo had chosen not to appear to Fareeha in his human form, choosing instead to maintain his animal form in front of her, which indicated he wasn’t as willing to show himself as he was to other humans as he’d made Jesse believe. Thus, Jesse could say what he wanted, without fear of open repercussions because Hanzo wouldn’t want to blow his cover. A slow smile began to pull at the corners of his mouth.

“Hanners.”

Fareeha looked up from smooshing Hanzo’s cheeks in her palms. “What?”

Jesse leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms, fighting a smile. “Was thinking of calling him Hanners. Just seems to fit, y’know? Cute dog, cute name, right?” He steadfastly ignored the bright yellow glare now fixed on him from over Fareeha’s shoulder.

She blinked then turned to look back at Hanzo, a smile lighting up her face. “Hanners. Yes, that is rather cute. Where’d that name come from?”

Jesse mimed locking his lips and tossing away a key. “Heard it on the wind.”

Fareeha laughed and went in for one last croon and smoosh of Hanzo’s face before rising and clapping her hands together, brown eyes alight as she launched into one of her million-miles-an-hour rambles as she strode to the door. “Well, we certainly cannot have him eating _kibble_ , now can we? I’ll go back to the store and get- oh but I don’t know what meats would be best for him, but then-” she stopped dead and whirled back from the door to point a single imperious finger at Jesse. “Don’t you dare try and feed my mother’s homegrown lettuce and broccoli to him, they are for _you_ , Jesse McCree-”

“Broccoli-”

“Yes, and several lovely squashes.”

“ _Squash_!”

“I’ll be back again soon, do not misbehave too badly while I’m gone. Keep an eye on him for me, won’t you, Hanners?” Fareeha paused in the open door to drop a wink at Hanzo before whirling down the steps to her car and pulling away.

Jesse sighed and ground his palms into his eyes. “Yeah, before you ask, she’s always like that.”

There was a chuckle and a short series of soft padding -human- footsteps behind him, then Hanzo was at the window beside Jesse and once again Jesse started at Hanzo’s appearance. Gone was the armor and furs and the weapons, now Hanzo wore only a soft beige-y brown shirt that came to just past his elbows and slightly adorable poofy brown pants, his silver hair, aside from his single peak of bangs in the front, pulled back from his face in a long and thick ponytail. The yellow tattoos on his arm and under his eyes remained. He looked… softer, now, less wild and more domesticated. More like a version of the wolfdog he was pretending to be, a man, not a beast or a god. He was suddenly less daunting of a new roommate prospect to consider. The sunlight caught in Hanzo’s eyes and hair, bringing the gold from his tattoos to the highlights of his cheekbones, turned his hair to a meld of silver and gold, and brought out honey-colored streaks in his otherwise dark eyes. Jesse blinked, gave his head a miniscule shake. _Damn it man, you’re better ‘n this, stop thinkin’ with your-_

Hanzo smiled, still looking out the window. “I do like her, your sister.”

Jesse arched a brow at him and let out a huff, crossing his arms over his chest. “Who says she’s my sister? You been diggin’ around in my head?”

Hanzo’s smile grew, unruffled. “It is obvious to anyone with eyes, and no, I would not ‘dig around’ without your permission.” 

Jesse felt the side of his mouth quirk up. “In either my head or my yard?”

It was Hanzo’s turn to huff, and he turned away towards the kitchen. “Dig, yes, haha. I see. We’re beginning the dog puns now, it appears. I could melt your brain inside your head with a twitch of my finger if I wished to, I will have you know.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and followed him to the kitchen, then leaned against the doorjamb and watched as Hanzo began rooting through his fridge. After about a minute, Hanzo emerged with a jar of pickles and a perplexed expression.

“According to the date here these expired six months ago, mortal, do you honestly not-”

Jesse grumbled and stalked forward to snatch the pickles away. “Look, if you’re gonna judge me you can leave. Been dealin’ with some stuff in past months, okay, cleanin’ my fridge ain’t been my priority.”

Hanzo watched him dump the pickles out with his now familiar unruffled-and-interested expression. Jesse was really beginning to get the worst sense of foreboding when he saw that expression. Jesse ignored him in favor of running the disposal and rinsing the jar and- yeah okay the pickles were definitely bad.

The sound of shifting food bags alerted Jesse than Hanzo’s quest for snacks was not yet ended, and when Jesse looked up Hanzo was rifling through cabinets and pulling out various boxes and bags before examining them and putting them back. Jesse sighed, resigned to the sudden realization he would be feeding his sudden new roommate who likely wasn’t going to pay rent for the duration of his stay.

Jesse turned, intending to complain about such, when he was suddenly arrested by the way Hanzo’s shirt rode up as he stretched for the top shelf. Smooth light brown skin, stretched healthily taut over the swell of a heavily muscular back, the delicious indentation of spine, reaching down to tease Jesse with the top of the sleek plane of the small of Hanzo’s back. Jesse had to physically lock down on the hot flush that ran down his body at the sight and make himself look away. _Don’t think with your dick don’t think with your dick don’t! Think! With! Your! Dick!_

“Ranger.”

Jesse’s head snapped up and he forced himself to relax his deathgrip on the sink. “Yeah?” he croaked out.

Hanzo had relocated to the couch with his selected snack in his lap, legs once again folded neatly underneath him. “Teach me how to operate your Netflix.”

Jesse sighed and moved to stand back in the doorframe, not quite in the kitchen or in the living room, crossing his arms again. “Why are you here?”

Hanzo blinked. “I told you, did I not? I am seeking out my brother, who does not wish to be sought out. I intend to find him, if only to ask him to hear what I have to say. Whether he deigns to listen or respond is up to him. But first I must find him, and I will need a -as you say, I believe- base of operations in order to do that. He has told me in the past of this park and the others in the American West, how he enjoys them. So here I am.” Hanzo’s voice softened as he described how his brother enjoyed the parks, once again surprising Jesse with another unexpected facet to the okami.

Jesse stared. Hanzo’s noble, family-oriented, intentions aside, this whole situation just reeked of the potential to bring more attention from certain places he’d been avoiding for years down on him than he was comfortable with, and he wondered whether he should insist Hanzo find some other person to bother as he looked for his brother.

“Look, I get that, but… why here? Why can’t you just, I dunno, camp out in the woods or somethin’? What about this-” Jesse paused to gesture around himself at the general lack of grandeur lived in, that he suspected Hanzo was usually accustomed to- “makes you want to stay here?” He closed his eyes and ground his palms into their sockets.

“It is because of you.”

Jesse’s head snapped up.

Hanzo’s stare was straightforward and calm. “Despite what you seem to pretend to your coworker and to yourself, you really do care for the world around you, and the wolves of this park, more than you let on, which, as a deity and protector of wolves, I find delightful. And, really, ranger, do you actually object to my presence that much?” Another one of those enchanting head-tips, silver braids and dark eyes somehow still somehow maintaining their incredible beauty in the dull lights of the table lamps and TV.

“No,” Jesse found himself saying, almost against his will, “I guess I can’t say I do.”

“Then it is settled. I will stay here while I search for my brother, and in exchange, I will make my presence as unobtrusive, unassuming, and generally pleasing as I can. Now, come here. I wish to watch Netflix.”

The mundanity of the request left Jesse suspecting that being caught off-guard for the umpteenth time that day was the beginning of a new trend. He snorted, gave another little shake of his head, then went and picked up the remote with a sigh.

\---

Five and a half hours and several arguments that made Jesse glad he didn’t have neighbors later, he stretched his arms up over his head, and gave up. “That’s it, I’m calling it a night. Stay out here if you want, I’m going to bed.”

Hanzo rose before Jesse could, and shook out his braids as he sauntered in front of Jesse to the bedroom. Jesse adamantly did not let his mouth fall open as Hanzo tossed a glance back over his shoulder at him, and said, “To bed, yes?” before disappearing through the doorframe.

It took Jesse a long second to process what had just occurred, then he was up on his feet and crossing the room in less than a handful of strides for the third time in twelve hours.

He swallowed hard, pulse in his ears, then poked his head around the doorframe, half-terrified half-he wasn’t sure what at what he’d find. Then let out a snort at the sight of Hanzo, paws once again crossed elegantly under his chin, lying across the foot of his bed like a statue dedicated to the ideal of elegant doggy repose straight out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue.

 _Disappointed_? Jesse nearly jumped at the voice that was not his own in his head, and glared at Hanzo.

_I said I would not, as you say, dig around. I did not say I would not, if you will, bark at the door._

“Semantics,” Jesse huffed with an eye roll, crossing the room to the catch-all Chair of Clothes in the corner, aware of Hanzo’s eyes on him as he moved, suddenly embarrassed by the various states of disarray his house was in, in comparison to Hanzo’s elegance and grace. Lifting his chin slightly, Jesse decided he would not be embarrassed, since it was usually only himself here. If Hanzo had an issue with the mess, he had only himself to blame for dropping in without invitation.

Jesse reached down to unbuckle his jeans, but when the pressure of Hanzo’s eyes did not abate, he turned to shoot a glare at the white dog. Hanzo’s ears were pricked high and his yellow eyes bright.

_Please, do not stop on my account._

Jesse ignored the flash of heat that curled in his lower belly and traced along his cheeks, and let out an irritated noise. “Please, don’t do that when you’re a dog.”

 _Nope, nope, and no, Jesse_ , he told himself _, do NOT get involved._

_So you would not mind when I am in human form, yes?_

“I didn’t say that.” Hanzo let out a low  _ruk-ruk-ruk_  noise that might have been the canine equivalent of a laugh.

When he emerged from the bathroom, dressed in sweats _and_ a shirt, Jesse continued faithfully ignoring Hanzo and climbed under the covers without looking at him.

_You never answered my first question._

Jesse closed his eyes. “Not goin’ to.”

Ruk-ruk-ruk.

 _Fair enough, mortal, fair enough_.

And then all was quiet, and they slept.

-

When Jesse woke, he slapped at his alarm clock until it shut up, and rolled over with a grumble, still blissfully drowsy, the demands of daily life not yet breaking through the veil of sleep. Then the events of the day before came flooding back, and his eyes snapped open and he scrambled upright, rubbing sleep from his eyes and squinting for a white shape at the foot of his bed. Hanzo was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me a comment to let me know if you enjoyed, they really motivate me to write, and between work and school starting up again soon, i'm going to need all the motivation i can get ^^
> 
> (can you tell i just really really enjoy writing descriptions of hanzo's pretty face? because i do)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot thickens, and Hanzo pays rent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so very sorry for the sudden and unintended hiatus, beloved readers. having to get back into academic work really sapped my motivation for any kind of personal work. i'm going to try and get back to a more regular update schedule, but i won't make any promises. thank you for sticking with me, and this story! 
> 
> also: mind the tags and the rating change, please. there is blood and an animal death in this chapter. if that isn't your cup of tea, read until Hanzo enters the copse of trees, and then skip to the very last two lines or so.

Even though the bed was empty, Jesse was nonetheless certain Hanzo was nearby, judging from the noises coming from what sounded like the kitchen.  He rolled himself upright with a sigh and padded out to investigate and put on some coffee, foreboding already curling in his gut and muttering that he was going to need it today.

When he emerged into the kitchen, he found Hanzo perched, as Jesse was discovering he was wont to do, on the counter, examining a box of cereal with interest. A bright pair of umber eyes fixed on him under arched white brows. “You consume _oats_ in the morning, to fuel your day? Little wonder dear Fareeha pushes vegetables on you.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and decided it was too early to deign to respond, and wordlessly went about making coffee, shivering a little at the slight chill. Autumn was very much beginning to dig its frosty fingers into the air and ground. As the percolator started up and filled the room with energy-promising fragrance, Jesse watched Hanzo discover cereal. Jesse felt a twinge of jealousy at how even the slightest of Hanzo’s movements was light and precise, his grace making even the act of opening a box of cereal elegant. Everything he did was so pleasing to look at, that Jesse didn’t notice Hanzo was staring at him in return until Hanzo tipped his head to one side in his customary amused gesture.

Jesse blinked and coughed and turned abruptly away, but Hanzo didn’t pursue his lapse, instead choosing to rifle through the fridge again, possibly in search of milk.

As Hanzo munched on his cereal and Jesse sipped his coffee while staring out the window, the silence was pleasant, almost companionable. So pleasant and comfortable, in fact, that they both jumped when Jesse’s cell phone rang, far too cheerfully for the hour, and let them know Gabriel Reyes was attempting to get Jesse’s attention. Jesse sighed and picked up, knowing better than to let a call from his more-than-a-little-worrisome-pseudo-dad go unanswered for too long.

“Mornin,’ Gabe, what’s goin’ on? Don’t tell me you need me to man the office again while you and Jack take a buncha Boy Scouts out on-”

Gabe’s voice was low and to the point. “Jesse. There was a break-in in the office last night.”

Jesse cut himself off with a sharp breath in, and his eyes shot to Hanzo, who had paused in his snarfing and was obviously listening intently to the conversation being had with his enhanced godly hearing. Or at least, Jesse assumed it was some facet of his godliness, or maybe it was a canine thing, that was quite obviously allowing him to hear both sides of the conversation, and arched a brow questioningly. Hanzo gave a single definitive shake of his head in answer, eyes dark in their sudden solemnity. His silver brows drew together as Gabe and Jesse spoke.

“Was anything taken or broken? You thinkin’ vandals, or thieves?”

He could hear the frown in Gabriel’s voice. “No, just kinda fucked the place up seven ways to Sunday, totally trashed it. Smashed some print frames, papers everywhere. Even if anything was taken, I wouldn’t be able to tell, it’s such a fuckin’ mess. Jess, you’re the closest to the station. Did you see or hear anything suspicious last night or earlier this morning? I already called the cops, they’re here taking photos and notes and whatnot.”

“Nah, it was all quiet here.” Quiet around his and Hanzo’s bickering, that was. Jesse felt a flash of guilt at allowing his guest to distract him from his job.

“Did any of the hikers seem suspicious yesterday? Ask any questions or look… I dunno, weird?”

Jesse let out a huff of a laugh, ignoring a slight tinge of nerves in his gut. “Damn, Gabe, did those cops set you up to interrogate me? Warn a man first, shit. Are you playin’ the good cop or the bad cop?”

Gabe sighed. “I’m asking all the questions because I told them having you come down the mountain was a bit of a trek, and I could just ask you myself, _mijo_. They don’t know your name, they aren’t poking around too much.” Cool relief began to cool Jesse’s veins.  “Be grateful they didn’t ask to see you themselves. I don’t need nobody’s licenses getting run through any relevant systems today, especially yours.”

The trickle of relief turned to a wash, even if it didn’t entirely settle the nerves in Jesse’s gut. “Shit, thanks, Gabe. To answer your questions, no, none of the hikers seemed like any more than the pot-smoking hippies they appeared to be. I didn’t get a weird vibe from any of them.” Another flicked glance at Hanzo. _Except one_. “You know how I trust the vibes, Gabe.”

A snort from Gabriel. “Okay, _mijo_ , I’ll tell them my esteemed third-in-command can confirm the area was undisturbed to his knowledge last night, and that this ranger will come by later to assess the situation as well.”

“ _Third_ in command? Damn, when did I take Fareeha’s place as favori- wait, come down? While there’s still cops around?” Jesse asked, hot nervousness raking his veins.

“You can handle it. And they’re leaving after they get our statements anyway, I’m takin’ them up to talk to Mister Head Park Manager and do some official paperwork in Jack’s official office.”

Jesse ran a hand backward through his hair. “If you’re sure they’re leavin’… I hate to sound like this, I do, Gabe, but you know how I feel about cops.”

“I do, Jess. They’re leaving, don’t worry. Just come down, sweep once through, then you can head back out. Take a long hike up to that ridge you like, stay out of sight for a good six or eight hours.”

“All right, boss.”

“Good. Thanks, Jesse. You _will_ come by later, _si_?” Gabriel’s tone suggested Putting On One’s Big Boy Pants and Dealing With It was an excellent idea for Jesse.

Knowing better than to try and weasel out of it, Jesse sighed, “Yessir.”

Satisfied, Gabriel ended the call, and Jesse let himself sag against the counter with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you don’t know anything about this, do you?”

Hanzo, for once, appeared completely serious, his flawless countenance marred only marginally by the frown now present there. He set down his bowl carefully. “I do not. I am, as you say, as in the dark about this as you are. I would accompany you to the office later, if you do not mind.”

Jesse nodded, already tired again, a sense of dread tightening the pit of his gut. “In your four-legged… form, sure. Wouldn’t mind the company.”

-

An hour and only a little procrastination later, Jesse and Hanzo arrived at the office. It appeared from the glint in Gabriel’s eyes Fareeha had told Gabriel and Jack about “Hanners” that morning when she got to the station. Gabriel regarded Hanzo with unreadable dark eyes for a moment, then dropped into a crouch as Hanzo crested the steps to the porch. He offered a hand, which Hanzo gave a polite sniff, then Gabriel reached up to scratch behind one pointed white ear with a calloused hand, Hanzo closing his eyes and accepting the touch. Gabe tipped his head to one side in a rather canine movement himself. “Sorry about the dart and collar the other day, Hanners,” Gabriel said unaffectedly, almost as if he knew he were talking to a dog-shaped person, “Didn’t know you were… something else.” Hanzo opened his eyes and for a long, hair-raising second for Jesse, they regarded each other. Then Gabriel let out a huff of amusement, and straightened.

He folded his massive arms across his chest as Jesse stepped up onto the porch next to him. “Poke around, see if there’s anything I missed. Start cleaning up, maybe. Jack and I have to head up to the main station to file another report or some shit, sign some papers. As soon as she’s free at the station, Reeha’s gonna come join you.” Gabe paused, and it was in that pause Jesse could read how unnerved Gabriel was. “I just don’t know about this, Jess. You n’ Reeha are in there more often than I am, after all, maybe you’ll notice something was taken that I didn’t,” he said, voice low.

Jesse rolled his eyes, overly-confident as he usually pretended. “If somebody wanted a trail map that damn bad, they coulda come durin’ business hours and I’da been happy to give ‘em all the maps they wanted,” he drawled, opening the door and trying not to trip on Hanzo as he darted inside. Gabriel barked a laugh.  

“Call me if anything happens, _mijo_. Hell, call me to let me know the crazed map-stealer didn’t come back and go full homicidal maniac. I ain’t got time to look for pieces of your body in the woods.” Despite his light tone, Gabriel’s slight smile became something closer to a frown, and he tugged a hand through his mess of silver-frosted curls as he spoke.

“Will do, Pops.” Gabriel raised a hand in farewell, and Jesse let the screen door clatter closed after himself.

The inside of the office was well and truly trashed.

As the sound of Gabriel’s boots faded, Jesse stuck his hands in his pockets and turned slowly in place, letting out a low whistle as he took in the rampant destruction. The sound of rustling papers caught his attention, and when he looked back to Hanzo, the okami was back in his human form, minus his armor and furs, and was frowning at the sheaf of papers he’d picked up, rifling through them with a strange tension roiling around him, creasing his brows.

“Hanzo. What is it?”

“Nothing. I… Nothing. I had thought this might have been something to do with Genji, somehow, but it seems I was mistaken… Nothing but ordinary burglars.” Jesse could hear a strange mix of emotions in Hanzo’s tone.

Processing Hanzo’s words, Jesse blinked. “Genji? Is that your brother?”  

It was Hanzo’s turn to blink as he turned to face Jesse, as if he hadn’t meant to admit something. “Yes. Genji is my brother, younger by a few years. He has long been fond of pranks and foolishness, but this…” Hanzo stooped again, picking up a framed print of a gray wolf which, to Jesse’s surprise, was rent through by what appeared to be long knife slashes, or _claw_ marks- “This is beyond Genji’s usual realm of mischief.”

Jesse sighed. “I am sorry this isn’t your brother, but I’m also kinda glad it was prolly some human hooligan rather than some kind of supernatural-”

The sound of car tires outside effectively stopped Jesse’s words, and Hanzo ghosted to the window to peer out. “It seems the law enforcement has returned. Shall we-?”

Jesse was already halfway to the back door set in the far wall just beyond his own desk before Hanzo had finished speaking, pulse already picking up. Long strides carried him out the door and away from the building towards one of the trails that meandered into the woods, along which he paused just out of easy line of sight of anyone in the station’s clearing, trying to calm his pulse, hoping the police hadn’t walked around the building and seen him disappear into the trees. He just didn’t have it in him to deal with that mess, try to answer all their questions, questions he didn’t have answers for.

HE didn’t jump when Hanzo appeared ghost-quiet next to him, eyes low-lit. Jesse wondered absently if he was beginning to become accustomed to Hanzo’s presence. That thought was comforting, somehow. He absently realized Hanzo was still in his understated form, only in the simple shirt and pants and boots again. That too was comforting. Less of a god or a caricature, more of a man. He still refused to meet Hanzo’s concerned gaze anyway, in favor of hiding the signs of his slight panic. He slid to the ground, back still against a tree, and stared out at the quiet woods as he tried to calm his pounding heart and ragged breath.

Hanzo wordlessly settled near him, not quite touching but close enough for Jesse to feel his presence without looking at him, folding his hands on his thighs and his feet under himself, as was his custom. He said nothing as Jesse’s heart slowed to normal. The quiet of the forest was unbroken by anyone but themselves and the trees’ occupants.

When Jesse glanced over at Hanzo a few moments later, he found the okami sitting just as he had been before, hands still on his thighs, with his eyes closed. Jesse realized he was meditating. He’d been expecting Hanzo to pounce on him as soon as it was acceptable, to demand answers and explanations as he had before. Jesse blinked in surprise that Hanzo was willing to sit in silence and wait out Jesse’s fear with him as it passed. Hanzo’s eyes opened, and the unquestioning peace Jesse found in their depths was just as comforting as his presence. He realized, by Hanzo’s deliberate silence, in that moment, that Hanzo understood the kind of fear response Jesse had given, and also that Hanzo was not going to ask about it. A low soft thing that might have been a seed of respect settled warmly in his chest as the last of the almost-panic faded away.

He cleared his throat. “Might have to get you to teach me that thing you were doing. Meditating?”

Hanzo nodded. “Indeed. It has helped me quite a lot in past years. I think you might find it beneficial.” Hanzo considered him, eyes steady, for a moment, then pushed himself elegantly to his feet and said, “Wait here,” before moving ghosting back down the trail towards the building. Less than a minute had passed before Hanzo was back, coming to a graceful halt and folding himself to the ground again as he said simply, “They have left.” Something warm and soft kindled in gratitude for Hanzo’s gesture in Jesse’s gut, and the seed of respect in his chest might have taken a little root.

Jesse heaved himself upright, and Hanzo followed in one of those ergonomic fluid movements of his as Jesse brushed the leafy debris off his pants. A soft breeze coursed its way out of the deeper woods and caressed Jesse’s face comfortingly. He lifted his face into it, briefly closing his eyes.

“C’mon, let’s go for a walk. Wanna stretch my legs a little.” Hanzo nodded wordlessly and fell in at Jesse’s shoulder.

As they wandered down the trail, Hanzo would ask an occasional question about the various flora and fauna of the area but mostly let the comfortable silence remain undisturbed. Late autumn was one of Jesse’s favorite times of the year in Montana as the foliage changed colors, becoming a riotous display of windswept gold and jewel toned leaves. Some of the leaves were nearly the same bright pure gold of the tattoo under Hanzo’s eyes.

Nearly twenty minutes of peace passed them by as they walked, when Jesse pulled in a heavy breath, and let it out again. “When I was a kid, well, not really a kid, old enough to know better, I- did some stuff I’m not proud of.” And so, Jesse spoke. He told Hanzo all about running with the wrong crowd, letting them talk him into things he shouldn’t have, told him about the brief time he’d spent in juvie, and how when he was seventeen, he ended up in jail. Real actual not-shitting-around jail. “Scared me stiff, Hanzo. Thought I wasn’t ever goin’ to get out. Worst experience of my life. I thought I was gonna rot in there. But then Gabe- my boss, mentor too, I guess, you saw him earlier- came and talked to me. He used to run some program for troubled youth, with his partner-turned-husband Jack. Got me out and pulled some strings to get me up here.” Jesse inhaled the wind again, luxuriated in how it lifted the hair from his neck and ran cool comforting fingers over his face. He could sense Hanzo’s steady gaze on the side of his face. “I love it out here, out in the woods. Open air, open trees. I’m not the sort of guy that could make it in prison, Hanzo, I’d wither away to nothing.” He coughed self-consciously. “I don’t _technically_ have a felony on my papers, which is how I got to be a federal employee, but… any kind of screw-up on my part, any kind of involvement with cops at all… scares me. Scares the shit right out of me. Thinkin’ about them poking around, looking too closely, deciding I shouldn’t be out here after all-” Jesse coughed, cut himself off.  

They came to a fallen log Jesse was familiar with, its age revealed by the heavy blanket of moss covering it, and Jesse sat and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I… just thought you deserved some kinda explanation for how weird I was back there. Don’t like gettin like that, but… it happens, sometimes.”

Hanzo sat lightly next to him. “A long, long, time ago I made a very great and terrible mistake.” His voice was low and soft, wistful with the past. “The first decade or so after, I forget how long, I… wandered. Rejected all contact with those who sought me out, either to try and make me pay for the mistake, or to ask me to come home. I felt… I could do neither of those things.”

Impelled by the unvarnished honesty in Hanzo’s voice, Jesse turned to look at him, and found Hanzo’s eyes downcast, a furrow having formed between his silver brows. “What happened?” Jesse queried, equally quietly.

Hanzo looked up. “I was forgiven for my mistake, by the very one against whom I had committed it. I had thought it impossible, for a multitude of reasons.”

Jesse blinked as Hanzo reached up to his lightly touch his jaw. “But I did eventually find peace again. Given time. And I learned that, in this world, very few things are truly impossible.”

Maybe it was part of Hanzo’s okami-ness bleeding through again, but Jesse found himself once again caught in the rich depths of Hanzo’s endlessly dark eyes. He wanted to talk Hanzo’s hand in his, keep that delicious warmth on his skin, lean into his touch. He opened his mouth, unsure of what he would say but wanting to say something nonetheless-

The moment was broken by Hanzo breaking the stare, snapping his head around to stare off into the trees.

“Something is wrong.”

Jesse blinked, making himself regain his sense of situational awareness, and found that Hanzo was correct. The trees, normally welcoming and benign in their over-watching presence, now felt looming and cold, leering down at Jesse and Hanzo where they sat on one of their fallen sisters. A cold wind whipped around them, hissing admonishments and curses. Hanzo stood and moved silently off the path before Jesse regained his feet, and as per usual, he was left scrambling in Hanzo’s wake.

Jesse nearly tripped on a root, and when he looked back up, Hanzo had re-materialized his armor and furs and was slipping between the trees with an easy athletic grace. As he made his way down his haphazard path, he occasionally paused to lift his face to the wind, obviously scenting it. As Jesse did his best to follow Hanzo as quietly as possible, the urge to ask Hanzo what the hell was going on was present, but very much overwhelmed by the feeling that spoken words would not be welcomed in these trees as they were and that he should stay very, very, quiet.

Pausing for a moment longer than usual, Hanzo held out his right hand with an open palm, and in a sigh of wind colder than any belonging in the September forest, one that smelled of snow and pine sweeping down mountains far from Montana, an ornate longbow materialized in Hanzo’s hand. As did a strap across his armor, holding to Hanzo’s back an equally ornate quiver and white-fletched arrows. Hanzo pulled out three in the economic movements of an expert and nocked one, still standing in place, eyes locked on a point beyond them in a particularly dark copse of trees perhaps twenty-five feet away. He lifted the bow, and the air seemed to _shudder_ , miasma pulling back from Hanzo’s suddenly gold-limned frame, glinting with power.

“Reveal yourself!” Hanzo snapped, pulling the string tighter, and Jesse desperately wished he had thought to strap Peacekeeper to his hip that morning as the air shuddered again, filling Jesse’s ears with a strange infernal whispering, low eerily musical voices to which he dared not listen too closely.

A long stagnant moment passed. Jesse watched as Hanzo’s eyes narrowed. “I said, _reveal yourself_!” and fired.

A low wailing screech of pain and anger emanated from the dark copse and grated on Jesse’s eardrums, then the darkness appeared to curl in on itself, and retreated oozingly deeper into the woods. The heavy blanket of antagonism lifted, and the sun regained its usual jovial hue. Birdsong erupted. Jesse put a hand to his chest, swaying slightly. It felt like he could breathe again, could think again. Hanzo, apparently unaffected, lowered the bow and bounded forward towards the little clearing. Jesse strode forward to his side as Hanzo disappeared into the brush, hand twitching instinctively to where he wished his gun rested.

In the process of picking the thorny brush from his shirt and jeans, Jesse nearly ran into Hanzo. He’d stopped just inside the clearing, and the low keening pouring from Hanzo’s throat made the hairs on the back of Jesse’s neck stand on end. Stepping forward to peer around Hanzo’s shoulder, Jesse stopped dead in his tracks.

A bloody, gray-furred corpse lay in the center of the clearing. A wolf, dead. Hanzo made another low noise of pain and stepped forward, laying his bow on the ground next to him as he knelt. Maintaining a respectful distance, Jesse stepped as close as he dared and leaned in, doing his best to ignore the rank stench of death already gathering around it. “I don’t know if you can see, but he’s-”

“She,” Hanzo interrupted, voice low and soft with pain. “She.”

Jesse inclined his head. “Sorry. _She_ was one of the ones we were tracking. Look.” Jesse gestured at the leather collar nearly hidden by the mass of pulped bloody fur.

Hanzo’s mournful expression transformed into a frown, and he gestured for Jesse to step back. Jesse complied, and Hanzo began to murmur something in his native language, then reached into the mess. After a few moments of careful feeling around, Hanzo lifted the wolf’s head, and slid the blood-soaked collar free, before delicately, almost tenderly, placing her head back down, still speaking softly as he closed her dull, unseeing yellow eyes, as yellow as the marks under Hanzo’s own.

Hanzo sat back, coated halfway up his forearms in blood, eyes a thousand miles away, his face drawn. Jesse moved closer and went to one knee next to him. He reached out, hesitated, then put a hand on Hanzo’s arm. Hanzo stirred, looked again at the dead animal in front of him. “She was young, Jesse. So young. Not even five years old.” Hanzo’s voice was distant, soft. Jesse rubbed his arm.

“I’m sorry, Hanzo. We do our best, but sometimes our best just ain’t good enough. Poaching is just-”

“She was not poached.” Jesse blinked.

Hanzo turned solemn dark eyes on Jesse. “She was killed by no mortal. Does a poacher, or even a hunter who simply hates wolves, tear and rip flesh as so? No.”

Hanzo’s stare was dark as the places between stars. “No. This slaughter is a warning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked this, leave a comment!! they do so much to encourage me to keep writing! ^^


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does Hanzo need to pay rent anymore? We shall see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i managed to get this done almost entirely today while procrastinating actual schoolwork. two more weeks and the semester is over, and then hopefully i'll be able to upload more. hopefully the length and content will serve as a peace offering. ^^
> 
> mind the tags and the rating change here gentlebeings. if smut isn’t your thing, skip until the last few lines after they're watching HGTV.
> 
> unbeta'd and barely edited. i'll come back to do some fixing-up tomorrow.

Hanzo was quiet as he led the way back, his pace quick and light on the trail. Jesse didn’t mind either the silence or a bit of huffing and puffing as he kept up with Hanzo’s rapid stride; he was eager to be out of the woods and the lingering sense of wrongness that had the back of Jesse’s neck tingling. He had no answers, didn’t even know what questions to ask.

 

As they exited the clearing and were walking back to the station, Jesse blinked, taking in the angles of the shadows on the ground, longer than they should have been. He pulled out his phone and stared at the time staring staidly back. 3:04 pm. It had been no more than noon or so when they’d first gone in. He stopped beside Hanzo, whose dark eyes were flicking around the clearing, plainly as taken aback as Jesse was. His eyes landed on Jesse’s, his expression dark. “Guess we were in there longer than we thought, huh?”

 

Hanzo hesitated a second, his gaze completing another circuit of the clearing. “It seems so,” he murmured.

 

Once inside, Jesse called the wolf carcass incident in. As he spoke to Gabriel, he carefully edited the story to exclude any reference to Hanzo, except that Hanzo The Wolfdog had led him into the woods where Jesse found it. Hanzo, having dissipated his armor and weapons again, stalked about the station aggressively putting it right again as Jesse told Gabriel tersely about the wolf.

 

A heavy sigh. “The last fucking thing we needed is some fucking psychopath with a grudge targeting the— Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell him. Jack says to be fucking careful, and to sit tight on it. Don’t touch it, don’t do anything. We’ll be back tomorrow morning, and we’ll document it in a more official capacity then.”

 

Jesse made a noise of assent. “I was goin’ to do another sweep of the collars in the area, see if they’re all still movin’ around from the last time we documented them, and that none have gone missin’ or anything.”

 

Gabriel grunted. “Aside from the one I’m pretty certain I tagged your buddy Hanners with. I sure would like to know how he got that off...” he mused.

 

Jesse blanked for half a second before remembering Hanzo had indeed once been wearing a tracker collar himself, and that it was in fact still sitting in his nightstand at home. He made a mental note to get rid of it, quick, before someone else logged in and had a heart attack over what would appear to be a wolf at the same coordinates as Jesse’s cabin.

 

“Yeah, aside from that one. Well, I guess I’ll see y’all tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Bye.”

He terminated the call and ground his palms into his eyes. “Tell you what, Hanzo.” When he looked back up again, Hanzo was looking at him with an upraised eyebrow from where he was perched on the desk. “I’m going to show you how to work the software for checking locations on the wolves, and I’m going to go back and document the car-- what’s left of her. Just in case.”

 

Hanzo nodded once. “I advise you to touch as little as possible. You saw the… miasma hanging about that place.”

 

Jesse leaned against the desk next to Hanzo, close enough nearly to touch him, and turned his face into the afternoon light streaming in through the windows. “You think any of this has anything to do with that missin’ brother of yours?”

 

Hanzo sighed, and Jesse nearly jumped when fingers lightly stroked his bangs back from his face. “I do not know. I almost hope so, because then at least I would know he is, at least, nearby. If it is him, or related to him, somehow… I do not know how to feel.”

 

Jesse allowed himself to close his eyes, and to tip his face slightly more into Hanzo’s touch. “You said out in the woods earlier that this killin’ is a warning.” He could smell Hanzo, he realized, unidentifiable as any one smell, earthy and woodsy and warm. It hung about Hanzo like a cologne, fragrant and intoxicating.

 

Hanzo’s fingers moved to stroke through his hair, ever so lightly. He hummed. “Yes. Someone out there is… displeased with me. Genji and I have never been the closest or always on the best terms, but… for him to kill a creature as close to me as he knows wolves are is… troubling to consider. If it is not Genji, I am at a loss as to who, or what...”

 

As he spoke he continued running his fingers lightly through Jesse’s hair. Pleasure radiated from where his skin touched Jesse’s own. He sighed, sleepy and comfortable; it made him want to pull Hanzo down to the floor and put his head in his lap, fall asleep there. He could see it now: out in a field somewhere after a hike, the pair of them sprawled on a blanket and napping in the sun. Jesse stretching and sitting upright, looking down at Hanzo’s dozing face with affection warmer than the golden sunlight, gold as the ink in Hanzo’s skin, growing in his chest. He could lean down, pull Hanzo, pliant with sleepiness, to him, kiss his mouth and his eyelids, roll on top of him--

 

Jesse jerked his head away, breathing heavily. Hanzo had frozen, hand still upraised. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated he stared back at Jesse. He wanted to kiss Hanzo, wanted to kiss him _so bad_ , the desire to know what Hanzo’s godly mouth tasted like nearly _choking_ him--

 

“Listen,” Jesse began. His voice was rough with the beginnings of something like arousal, so he coughed and cleared his throat and tried again. “Listen, you got to-- you gotta stop with that, that okami thing. It’s fuckin’ with my head--” he cut himself off at Hanzo’s perplexed expression.

“I am not doing anything. I just… Your hair looked soft and I thought you would enjoy the touch. I did not mean to--” He swallowed, and even as Jesse was opening his mouth to respond, he found himself transfixed by Hanzo’s pink tongue darting out to wet his lips. For a moment Jesse was seized with the impulse to simply end this dancing around each other that he was certain was happening, lean into Hanzo and kiss him. Pin him to the desk and take his mouth. Maybe Hanzo would put a hand back in his hair, let Jesse lick into his mouth, maybe cross those dainty ankles in the small of his back and--

 

Blood rushed in Jesse’s ears as he forced himself to retreat a step. “I think, uh, I think I better go.” Hanzo licked his lips again, dark eyes strangely intense, and nodded.

 

“I concur.”

Heart pounding, Jesse stepped around the corner into his office in the back and rifled through his desk drawers until he found his camera bag. He pulled in a deep breath, trying to pretend his body wasn’t trying to tell his limbs to go back out there and lock the doors and do unspeakable things to Hanzo--

 

Jesse physically shook his head, deliberately cutting off that train of thought. No more, no more, he had a job to do. Even as he told himself that thinking about Hanzo that way wasn’t right, it wasn’t _gentlemanly_ , the back of his mind coiled in on itself in filthy machinations, considering all the ways he could try and tumble Hanzo into his bed _properly_. He determinedly and with all the stubbornness he had, ignored it and logged into his computer, leaving the software up and running on the desktop for Hanzo. He paused a moment, then opened the top right drawer and pulled the holstered pistol from its place at the back of the drawer. He weighed it in his hand, considering, then checked that it was loaded and the safety was on before decidedly tucking it into the back of his waistband. Not his beloved Peacekeeper, as he’d named the beefed-up revolver back in the days of young and stupid, but better than nothing.

 

When he poked his head back into the main room, Hanzo sat where Jesse had left him, and didn’t move as Jesse approached. “I’m headin’ out now, be back in a minute,” he said, as casually as he could. Hanzo hummed. “Got my computer set up in the back for you, just gotta click through with the mouse-- Oh, uh, the mouse is--”

 

“I am certain I will be able to figure it out for myself,” Hanzo replied, his voice serene with a strange undercurrent of energy. He didn’t move. Jesse hesitated for a moment longer, then forced himself back down the short hallway and out the back door.

 

***

 

The walk seemed much shorter this time around, now that he knew was he was looking for and Hanzo wasn’t present to cloud his senses. As he walked, Jesse considered how off-balance he’d been since Hanzo had shown up. Jesse usually prided himself on the level-headed situational awareness that had kept him alive as a younger and dumber man, which he now employed to a greater task than perceiving which of his “buddies” was a narc or going to turn on him or--

 

All that was gone, since meeting Hanzo. It was like Hanzo fogged his senses; Jesse couldn’t pay attention to anything else when Hanzo was around. It had been, what, three days? Not even? And suddenly this stranger had him by the balls, almost literally, and he couldn’t really bring himself to mind that much. Was Jesse slipping, somehow, or was Hanzo telling the truth when he said he wasn’t deliberately trying to mess with Jesse’s head? Maybe it was some kind of unconscious _thing_ , some effect that deities had about them. Away from that influence, conscious or otherwise, Jesse was kinda embarrassed. Heat brushed his cheeks as he made his way along the trail, considering how much of a fool he must look to Hanzo. Always losing his train of thought and stumbling and staring. _Dumbass_.

 

He smelled the turnoff from the trail before he saw it. He picked his way through the underbrush towards the clearing carefully, doing his best not to permanently disturb anything, and when he was in the clearing itself, the carcass just as they’d left it not even half an hour ago, he set his bag down and pulled out the Nikon itself.

 

Jesse fancied himself an amateur photographer and had photographed carcasses before: bones littered in leaves, remnants of hide stretched like curved cathedral ceilings between ribs, skulls bleached white by the sun. There was always a kind of grace to the carcasses he’d found before; a culmination, however unfortunate, of the circle of life. Nature reclaiming what had ever so briefly walked through it, a dispersal of energy into the world around it. It was beautiful, in a way. He found a kind of peace, looking at remains that way.

 

There was nothing artistic or peaceful about this. He ranged around the dead animal carefully, taking as few photos as possible and trying to capture the… _destruction_ of the poor thing as quickly as possible. More than that just felt… disrespectful.

 

After a few minutes, Jesse crouched by the bag and tucked the camera away. What Hanzo had told him about it-- her, hung heavily on him. Not even five years old. Barely into adulthood. Jesse tugged his hat low over his eyes, hoping Hanzo didn’t discover she had a litter of hungry pups somewhere. Camera safely stowed, Jesse paused before standing. He reached out, hesitated, then carefully stroked once along the wolf’s cheek. “I’m sorry this happened to you, lil miss.” He let out a heavy sigh, tried to smooth a few points of fur clotted with blood into jagged spikes. “I reckon Hanzo n’ me’ll get what happened to you figured out real quick. Then you’ll be able to sleep.”

 

Maybe he’d been spending too much time around Hanzo, but for a moment grief pricked at his eyes for the poor creature’s untimely death.

 

***

When he pushed the door to the Visitor’s Center open, Hanzo was gone from his spot on the desk. Following the sounds of clicking and poking at a keyboard, Jesse moved down the hallway to his office, and found Hanzo, armorless in shirt and pants, seated at the desk, squinting at the screen. “Gettin’ it to work?” Jesse queried quietly, trying to not let his amusement at the picture Hanzo made show. Hanzo let out a huff.

 

“I believe so. If the silly contraption would simply obey me, I would have been done a while ago,” he grumbled. Jesse bit back a laugh, and moved to the desk, sliding open the drawer the camera bag belonged in before setting it inside.

 

“Find anythin’ interesting?”

 

“Fortunately, I think not. All seems, I think, as it should be.” He squinted at the screen again. “I am almost certain the wolf we found is the only missing one.”

 

Jesse hummed and braced a hand on the desk, leaning down over Hanzo’s shoulder to look at the screen himself. Hanzo was right, all the data and numbers were coming up normal, aside from the obvious loss of their wolf.

Being so close to Hanzo again was bringing back the cloudiness Jesse always seemed to feel around Hanzo. At least now it seemed he could process his desire to press his face into Hanzo’s hair and inhale a lungful of his scent without the urge being overpowering. However, when Hanzo tipped his face up to look at Jesse, the adorable frown on his lovely face nearly made the desire to press a kiss between his brows unbearable.

 

He made himself pull away. “Well, come on. Let’s head back. It’s been a long day, and it’s rollin’ around towards dinner time.” Jesse busied himself with putting the gun away and, on a second thought, pulled the camera back out to make sure the photos were fully saved onto the SD card and plugged it in to charge. He shot off a brief text to Gabe to let him know he’d done so, just for insurance, before turning back to Hanzo, who was stretching out a kink from his spine. Jesse determinedly did not look at his taut belly when his shirt rode up.

 

“Hmph. Good idea.”

 

Jesse instructed Hanzo how to shut the computer down, and stepped away into the main room of the Visitor’s Center to take a peek at the cleanup efforts. To his surprise, everything was the way it should be, as pristine as a ranger’s station could be, out in the Montana woods. He nodded once, satisfied, and finished locking up for the night.

 

The walk back to Jesse’s place was pleasant. The frustrations of the computer had brought a snarky grouching wit out of Hanzo, which Jesse didn’t at all mind feeding with mild teasing about how Hanzo’s age and silver hair were catching up to him. He reached out before he could stop himself and tugged playfully on one of Hanzo’s silver locks.

 

Hanzo ran a hand down one of his fair braids and shot Jesse a dirty look at the comment. “I rather thought you liked my hair,” he replied drily. A tendril of interested heat coiled in Jesse’s gut at the realization Hanzo had caught him staring.

 

“I never said I didn’t.”

 

“There are a lot of things you don’t say.”

 

Jesse stepped to walk a little closer, nudged Hanzo with his shoulder. “Honey, there’s _plenty_ of things I don’t say.” Too much. Hanzo shot him another look, this one steeped in a different kind of darkness, honeyed and rich, at Jesse’s unthinking remark. The tentril of heat became a dull glow that he desperately tried to tamp out. He broke eye contact and quickened his pace as his cabin came into view, walked ahead of Hanzo to make it up his steps and unlocked the door. He swept Hanzo a slightly mocking bow and motioned for him to enter first. Hanzo accepted the gesture with a magisterial incline of his chin and a cool glance that only tempered the heat still gathering in Jesse’s belly.

 

Jesse headed for the kitchen after shrugging off his jacket and hat and gloves, and pulled out the fine glass bottle that had been Gabriel’s gift to him for his twenty-eighth birthday. He poured himself a shallow glass and offered Hanzo one with an upraised eyebrow when he found Hanzo had wandered into the kitchen after him. Hanzo accepted the glass with a nod, and they sipped in sober silence for a long moment. It was broken by Hanzo announcing he was going to watch more Netflix before turning and disappearing back into the living room. Jesse sighed and felt his mouth curling into a smile. He picked up the bottle and followed him.

 

***

 

 

Three hours later found them back in front of the TV after another half season of the office, an argument about vegetables which ended in Hanzo doing something absolutely magical with a squash, a saucepan, and olive oil, and a round of shots every time the boring white couple on whatever HGTV show it was did something ridiculous. By the time the show ended, they were nearing a state of tipsiness.

 

As the credits of the show rolled over footage of the Boring White Couple and their equally boring new suburban house, Hanzo collapsed against Jesse’s shoulder, laughing. Jesse wiped tears of mirth from his cheeks and unthinkingly threw an arm around Hanzo where he lay against Jesse’s side.

 

“Oh,” Hanzo chortled, “they were _ridiculous_.” Jesse held back another round of giggles at Hanzo’s goofy and flushed face. Hanzo shifted under his arm, settling so they were nearly face to face, Hanzo tucked into Jesse’s side. His eyes studied Jesse’s own, warm and rich and dark, and heat flooded Jesse’s veins with need. He wanted to reach out, put a hand on the back of Hanzo’s head, pull him in for a kiss. The tip of Hanzo’s tongue darted out to wet his pink lips and, combined with the high rosy flush on Hanzo’s cheeks, the effect was heart stopping. His lips parted slightly, and electric desire crackled across Jesse’s skin and jolted low in his gut as Hanzo’s eyes drifted down Jesse’s face to his lips.

 

Jesse swallowed hard. He reached out, his hand briefly cupping Hanzo’s cheek before his thumb brushed along Hanzo’s cheekbone. Hanzo settled his weight again, closer. Jesse could feel Hanzo’s warm breath on his mouth from those parted lips. He ran his thumb along Hanzo’s cheekbone again, asked a silent question.

 

Hanzo answered it by running his hand along Jesse’s side, up to rest at the junction of his neck and shoulder, heel of his hand against Jesse’s collarbone. Jesse stared at Hanzo’s mouth, shifted a fraction closer. Hanzo mirrored his move, his eyes flitting over Jesse’s face, a slight frown pulling at his features when Jesse did not act on the energy crackling and deepening between them.

 

Enraptured by the newly pouty nature of Hanzo’s lips, Jesse moved his hand to Hanzo’s jaw, his thumb now brushing through his silver beard and up over his lower lip. Hanzo’s eyes fluttered half-closed at the touch, his lips parting further before they closed around his thumb, pulling it into the warm recess of his mouth, his tongue brushing the tip of it. Jesse briefly and dizzily imagined his cock in its place and nearly lost his mind. He moved his hand to the back of Hanzo’s neck pulling him in and reveling in Hanzo’s strong grip on his own clothes and the soft gasp that escaped him--

 

And someone rapped equally strongly three times on the door.

 

The broke from each other sharply, jumping back as Jesse started upright. Another knock at the door and Jesse growled in annoyance. “Goddammit, _what_.” As he moved around the couch towards the door, a small part of him was relieved to see an expression of similar irritation on Hanzo’s face.

 

Surreptitiously adjusting his junk so it wasn’t immediately obvious he was well on his way to a raging boner to whoever it was at the door as he walked over, Jesse muttered, “Yeah, yeah, hang on,” as whoever it was banged on the door again. A glance out the window revealed only a dark but familiar truck with the NPS logo on the door, a dark jacketed shoulder on his porch, and to Jesse’s surprise, brush and trees bent and waving in a strong wind. Jesse flipped the locks quickly and barely had the door open before Gabriel Reyes was shouldering his way in.

 

 

“Jesus,” he growled, “Getting colder than Ana’s heart out there.” His boss and father figure reached up to start shaking the beginnings of rain or snow or sleet from his shoulders before regarding Jesse. “Thanks for letting me freeze on your doorstep, boy. Really appreciate it,” he said dryly, making Jesse roll his eyes.

 

“You took me by surprise,” Jesse retorted, crossing his arms. Gabriel let out a hah and shrugged out of his jacket, and as his eyes roved the room Jesse had the quick fear Hanzo hadn’t had time to shift-- but no, a quick glance told him a big white dog was curled sedately on his couch, his head lifted to see who it was who had come in. The hair on the back of Jesse’s neck stood up a little as Gabriel and “Hanners” regarded each other. Jesse sweated a little, especially when Gabe’s gaze moved from Hanzo to the two glasses sitting on the side table. Two. Shit. Jesse panicked a little, until Gabe dismissively commented, “You double fisting tonight, kid?”

 

Jesse didn’t answer aside from a vague grunt. Gabriel leaned against the couch, expression going serious. “Tell me again what happened, what you saw.”

 

It was a bit rough, remembering what he’d told Gabriel earlier about the wolf and adding to it enough to make the story seem real. Gabe seemed to buy it, though, nodding thoughtfully after Jesse finished his recounting. “Left the camera and the photos back at the office, though. Didn’t think you’d be stopping by. Thought you’d be back in the morning.” He was careful to not let any annoyance bleed through into his last words.

 

Gabriel snorted. “Wasn’t planning on it, until we saw the NWS saw this freak front was going to come through and decided we didn’t wanna drive in that and the usual morning traffic.”

 

“Mmph. I see.”

 

“Thought I’d come by and take a look at the photos tonight, but since they aren’t here I’ll go ahead and back out, try to get home before the front breaks. Not sure what it’s gonna be, snow or rain or sleet, but it’s gonna be nasty. If it looks like we can make it out to the carcass in the morning, let’s meet at the Center at nine-ish. Sound good?”

 

Jesse nodded. “Yeah, we’ll- I’ll be there.”

 

Gabriel studied his face a second longer, and Jesse did his damndest to keep his expression neutral and vaguely concerned. Gabriel broke the look and straightened, pulling his jacket back on. “Well, all right. See ya tomorrow, maybe. Good night, kid.”

 

Jesse murmured a good night and shut the door after him with an air of finality. When he turned back around Hanzo was back in human form, standing and poking at the remote to turn off the TV. Jesse felt the tentative hope that had ballooned back up in his chest deflate, and walked back over. He was going to pick up the glasses and ask Hanzo if he was done for the night, when, faster than he could track, a hand fisted in his collar and he was thrown down onto the couch, Hanzo settling into his lap directly after.

 

“ _Finally_ ,” Hanzo growled, “I was worried he was going to try and stay the night.” He leaned down and kissed Jesse’s mouth. Heat flooded and sang in Jesse’s veins, and he let out a low groan as Hanzo nipped at his lower lip, sighing as Jesse wound his arms around Hanzo’s waist and pulled him down more securely against Jesse’s chest. Hanzo licked into Jesse’s mouth, sucked on his tongue as he began a slow soft rocking against Jesse’s rapidly hardening cock. Jesse grunted and threaded a hand into Hanzo’s hair to deepen the kiss, the other hand finding its way to Hanzo’s ass, gripping and holding Hanzo against him, hot and needy. The heat was almost overwhelming, but Jesse found he wouldn’t even mind catching fire.

 

He rolled them over onto the couch like he’d been wanting to all day, settling his weight on Hanzo as Hanzo spread his legs for him. Jesse was intoxicated, enraptured, utterly in thrall to the feeling of Hanzo finally underneath him, feeling him pulse and roll against Jesse eagerly. He sighed and moaned in Jesse’s ear when Jesse broke the kiss to nuzzle and lick his way down Hanzo’s throat, pulling his hair on the edge of not-gently to give himself better access. Hanzo sat up as best he could and helped when Jesse growled and tugged at Hanzo’s shirt, shrugging it off quickly.

 

Jesse paused a moment to admire Hanzo’s chest, his heavy musculature extending to his pecs, heavy pink-nippled tits as lightly golden brown as the rest of him, smooth and sleek and silky to the touch, the flush of his cheeks and throat ending in the fuckable channel between them. Jesse groaned and rocked against Hanzo, watching the flush deepen as Hanzo moaned and reached up to pull Jesse back down into another needy kiss. As he kissed Hanzo’s mouth open for him, Jesse cupped those pinked tits in his hands, thumbing the nipples and eventually pulling away from his kiss-slicked and reddened mouth to press open-mouthed kisses to them as well. Hanzo shuddered underneath him, his ankles locking in the small of Jesse’s back as Jesse had hoped they would, and Jesse moved one hand to scrabble at the closure of Hanzo’s pants.

 

When Hanzo stilled underneath him, Jesse paused and looked up at his face, worried he’d crossed a line. Hanzo’s eyes were on his southern hand, eyes bright. Jesse breathed, “This okay?”

 

Hanzo rasped back, “Yes. _Yes_. Give it to me, _now_ ,” and Jesse surged up to kiss his mouth again as he finally got Hanzo’s pants open enough for them to work them down and over his cock, Hanzo moaning when it was finally exposed to the air and Jesse gave it a long, slow, stroke. Electric arousal crackled down Jesse’s spine watching Hanzo go to pieces.

 

“There you go, baby, I gotcha, I’ll take care of ya,” he muttered into the damp spot between Hanzo’s pecs. He kept stroking Hanzo’s cock, cooed sweet nothings and praises into Hanzo’s skin as he tensed under Jesse, his back arching. Jesse paused, struck by an idea. Hanzo lifted his head from where it was thrown back, frustration glittering in their depths. Jesse leaned up, kissed his mouth, and breathed between kisses, “Don’t want you-- to come-- just yet. Wanna-- make you come-- proper-- in a-- _bed_.”

 

Hanzo’s limbs tightened around him. “Then do it,” he rasped into Jesse’s ear. “Take me to bed.”

 

That statement gave Jesse the energy to surge upright onto his knees, pulling Hanzo with him with his hands gripping the junction between Hanzo’s ass and thighs to support him. The handful of strides to Jesse’s bedroom were lost in the flurry of kisses rained down on Jesse’s face. Jesse knelt on the edge of the mattress and lay Hanzo down before sitting back and admiring the sight. Hanzo, sprawled out on his bed, a lascivious grin curling his full red mouth, flushed and slightly sweaty, his legs spread invitingly. His cock throbbed needily. He shrugged out of his own shirt and, when he reached for his own belt buckle and fly, groaned as Hanzo started stroking himself. Hanzo hissed, “Hurry. I want to feel you.”

 

Jesse growled. “You. Are. So. Goddamn. _Hot_.” and Hanzo bit his lip, eyes flashing teasingly.

 

“ _Minx_.”

 

“Indeed. Hurry _up_.”

 

Jesse worked his jeans down far enough to get his cock out, and groaned, throwing his head back, as he gave it a few rough tugs. He braced his free hand by Hanzo’s head and leaned back down, kissed his mouth back open. Hanzo spread his legs wider around Jesse’s wider stance, and moaned low into Jesse’s mouth when Jesse took both their cocks in his hand, jacking them both off with slow, tight, strokes.

 

Hanzo’s nails dug into his shoulders. “Yes, yes, _yes_ ,” Hanzo rasped. “Jesse, _yes_ , just like that--”

 

Jesse bit into the side of Hanzo’s neck, just to feel him shudder. He jerked his hand faster, nuzzled under Hanzo’s jaw, sensing how close he was by how tense he was underneath him. “Go on, honey, go ahead and come, come for me.”

 

Hanzo cried out, so sweetly, as he arched and his nails raked down Jesse’s back, shuddering. Jesse gave him no quarter, ringing him dry and ready to fling himself off the edge watching Hanzo come on command. Within a handful of moments Jesse was grunting and biting down again hard on Hanzo’s collarbone.

 

A long moment of panting and holding each other passed before Jesse found the will to push himself up off Hanzo and again admire the picture he made. Hanzo lay still, eyes closed and panting, riding out the aftershocks, and was covered in come, his belly and chest all the way up to his collarbones, painted like… like some really gorgeous thing Jesse didn’t have the brain power to name.

 

He dragged a thumb through the come near the lovebit on his collarbone, then reached up to brush the come over Hanzo’s lower lip. Hanzo opened his mouth for it willingly, licking their spend of his finger. Jesse’s cock made a valiant effort to twitch with interest at the sweetness of the motion.

 

“Hey, baby,” he murmured, “How ya doin’ down there?” and stroked a hand over Hanzo’s hair.

 

Hanzo’s eyes flickered open, dark and satisfied. “Just fine,” he rumbled, a pleased smile curving his lips.

 

Affection welled again in Jesse’s chest. “How ‘bout a shower, sweetness?”

 

Hanzo stretched luxuriously, his eyes closing. “That sounds _quite_ nice.”

 

Jesse smiled and helped him upright before they both hobbled into the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thanks for reading and leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed~


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